What is Cultural Competence in Nursing? Why it Matters

Lately, we hear the phrase "cultural competence" a lot.

Surely, many of us apply it every day in our jobs and daily lives and don't even realize it. But what is cultural competence? How does applying cultural competence affect us? Why is it important for nursing professionals? Is it something that can be developed? Does it have something to do with quality assurance in care?

Discover the answers to these essential questions in this article.

What Is Cultural Competence?

Cultural competence is the ability to interact and communicate effectively with people from diverse cultural backgrounds.

It refers to understanding, valuing, respecting, and accepting different cultures, practices, and beliefs. Cultural competence allows all human beings to relate to anyone in a kind, loving, and caring way.

In the nursing profession, it is especially important to have skills in cultural competence. Treating all patients with the same level of care, affection, and respect demonstrates the skills of a great nursing professional.

What Does Cultural Competence Look for Nurses?

A nursing professional who is an expert in cultural competence goes beyond understanding and respecting the beliefs of other cultures. Here are some examples of what clinicians can do to demonstrate cultural competence:

Personalize patient care plans
Advocate for patient care with cultural sensitivity
Promote cultural competence among peers by collaborating with other team members to provide effective care
Build trust with the patient

Nursing professionals can bring cultural competence to any healthcare facility's care setting. Remember, nurses can make a big impact with their example.

Why Cultural Competence Is Important for Nurses

Cultural competence is essential for nursing professionals for several reasons. Not only does it prevent patients from receiving unequal levels of care, but it also helps build trust and lead to collaborative care plans. Additionally, practicing cultural competence is a great way to increase your professionalism as a nurse.

Improve Patient Outcomes

Cultural competence allows nursing professionals to develop more empathy for each patient. Therefore, they can better understand how to provide the care a patient needs at any given moment. Understanding unique patient needs makes improving outcomes easier.

Additionally, cultural acceptance has a significant impact on mental health.

For these reasons, nursing professionals must embrace cultural diversity in their workplaces.

Provide Equitable Care across Different Cultures

It's widely documented that some communities receive different—and often worse—care than others.

Thus, developing cultural competency ensures that all patients are treated equally and receive the same level of care.

Providing the same opportunities for care regardless of individual cultural background allows for equity across facilities.

Build Trust

Generally, when patients feel safe in an environment, they can talk freely about their ailments and confidently express what is happening to them.

Nursing assistants and nurses work for their patients. By building on the confidence and veracity that nursing professionals can give them, they can achieve better results and create an environment of trust.

Build a Stronger Nursing Care Team

Cultural diversity is present not only in patient care but also in the team of colleagues and coworkers.

That is why, by understanding the different cultural perspectives of the team, nurses can improve patient care outcomes. At the same time, they can work alongside one another with greater ease, respect, and empathy.

In summary, cultural competence empowers healthcare professionals with the skills necessary to improve patient outcomes despite serving a diverse population.

Nurses practice empathy and consideration, but they can go even further with cultural competence.

Common Barriers to Cultural Competence in Healthcare

There are several barriers to implementing cultural competence in a healthcare facility. Some of the obstacles include the following:

Personal Bias

Although nursing professionals may not do so intentionally, they may show their preference for specific cultures, creating disparities in the care and treatment patients receive.

As a result, patients may not follow their instructions, feel mistrustful, or not want to be treated by a specific nursing professional, leading to adverse outcomes.

It can be challenging to overcome preconceived notions about different cultures, and that's why cultural repatterning in nursing is essential—as will be explained later.

Each nursing professional's creativity allows them to develop new tools to make patients feel more at ease.

Language Barriers

One of the most significant barriers to interculturality is language.

For a patient, not being able to communicate in their first language what they need or how they feel creates a considerable barrier. This barrier can even become a legal problem because of the lack of permission to treat a patient.

Many facilities have access to interpreters when patients need them. In some cases, the interpreter is present at the hospital because many people have a specific language barrier. In other cases, the interpreter may be called by phone to help translate. Interpreters not only help with translation, but they can also help break down cultural barriers.

Socioeconomic Factors

Current cultural practices are also affected by socioeconomic factors. Furthermore, economic disparity can cause biases.

Each culture has different practices, norms, and values that determine its perception of health as a population group. Hence, it is important for nursing professionals to address health disparities through cultural competence.

How to Develop Cultural Competence in Nursing?

While children tend to show inclusiveness naturally, adults must make intentional efforts to develop cultural competence.

Thus, in healthcare facilities and home health, it is extremely important to help eliminate the racial and ethnic disparities that are often observed in care settings.

Some cultural competence education strategies include the following:

1. Pause and Self-Assess

Nursing professionals can easily recognize if they have personal biases.

It is important to be self-aware of these individual perspectives to work on them. In addition, it is essential to assess whether these biases are affecting those around them.

2. Create a Plan

Cultural considerations in nursing include having a plan to grow the cultural competency of healthcare professionals.

Generally, a plan has a specific goal for each nursing professional. For example, learning each week about the cultural background of a different patient can help professionals gain a broader view of their facility's cultural situation.

3. Pursue Training or Education on Cultural Competency

The steps to becoming culturally competent as a facility begin with getting to know the population surrounding that facility. From there, each facility can educate its professionals on the particular cultural needs of its patients.

In the cultural context, repatterning refers to restructuring activities and practices to make them more appropriate to different cultural groups. Cultural repatterning in nursing refers to how nursing professionals take these steps in their facilities:

Getting to know the cultural environment
Promoting community engagement to analyze priorities
Educating themselves and their colleagues

Generally, nursing professionals can push for cultural competence training in their facilities.

They can also take the initiative and take free cultural competency training from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

4. Practice Communication Techniques

There are many ways to communicate, including nonverbally.

Thus, nursing professionals should look for different techniques that work best for them:

Learning a new language
Having an interpreter
Using creativity to improve communication
Slowing down
Using props
Learning more about each patient's culture to communicate better

Eventually, each professional's open mind and heart will help patients feel safe.

5. Broaden Your Worldview

Of course, cultural competence strategies may vary from one training to another. However, one of the main strategies is broadening individuals' horizons and the way they view the world.

Nursing professionals can expand their worldviews in various ways:

Learning a new language
Volunteering in diverse organizations
Researching a new culture or a different country besides the United States

Through this, healthcare professionals can eliminate racial, religious, or national prejudice and recognize that societal progress comes through embracing diversity.

Working PRN shifts allows many nursing professionals to meet a wider variety of people, as their schedules and environments vary significantly.

Cultural Competence in Nursing Goes beyond Awareness

Cultural diversity training content should be reviewed periodically, as cultural demographics constantly change.

Nurses in different nursing roles, such as nurse anesthetists, clinical nurse specialists, public health nurses, direct care nurses, and nurse practitioners, need cultural competence to better care for individuals.

It is also necessary that more critical roles in society be represented by an increasing cultural diversity.

This can be achieved in nursing care by eliminating prejudice and valuing diversity. This goal can be achieved primarily through education and knowledge.

As mentioned, nursing professionals collaborate in constantly changing healthcare settings. This provides numerous opportunities for adaptation to change and acceptance of diversity.

Find out what different roles you can fill with Nursa. Create your account today and start working in various facilities and with diverse populations as a PRN clinician.

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